Perchance to Dream
by Discontented Dreamer
Summary: When Ariadne comes to visit in the middle of the night, Arthur discovers that maybe there are still dreams to be had.


It wasn't until she had rung the doorbell that she realized how irrational she was being. Her clothing had been thrown on quickly, giving her a decrepit look, her hair was disheveled and hanging in bedraggled curls around her face, and she was shivering in the chilly night air. God, even the hour was irrational. What sane person came to visit at three in the morning?

The door opened to reveal a sleepy, doe-eyed woman who looked beautifully put together, albeit confused. It only took Ariadne a second to realize she never should have come. Maybe there was still time to get away, before she destroyed herself any more than she just had. Alas, in the real world, there was never enough time.

She was just about to open her mouth, apologize and claim she had the wrong address, when _he_ appeared.

"Ariadne?" He was sleep-ruffled, clad only in boxer shorts with his normally slick hair in complete disarray, and yet she thought he looked as stately and beautiful as ever. He was peering at her over the doe-eyed woman's shoulder, surprise and something else in his countenance, and he bent to whisper something in the woman's ear. Ariadne couldn't hear but the woman left with just one openly curious glance back in her direction.

"Arthur, I'm so sorry. I never should have come. I don't know what I was thinking—"

He didn't let her finish. He gently grabbed her arm and tugged her across the threshold, hugging her to him tightly and closing the door against the nighttime chill. She almost sobbed at the feel of him—so warm, so _real_, right there with her. She felt his adam's apple vibrate against her temple as he murmured into her hair, "Jesus, you're freezing. Let me get you a blanket."

He pulled away then, and led her into a comfortable living room off the main hallway. He wrapped a thick woolen blanket around her shoulders and took one for himself. On his way to the chair opposite hers, he pressed a button set into the fireplace and merry flames erupted in the empty grate.

"I assume Cobb told you where I was?" he smiled wryly at her. She felt tears prick the back of her eyes again. She had resigned herself to the fact that she would never see that smile again. She fought to keep her voice steady.

"Eames, actually. He contacted me about four months ago about a new architectural conundrum he discovered in the mind of a trained mark. I've been stateside ever since, working with him in Chicago." She could feel herself rambling, and wished there was something else for her to focus on than his eyes boring into hers.

"Chicago," Arthur mused, not looking away from her for a second. "Not exactly close by. Care to tell me why you look like you walked here barefoot?" He wasn't smiling, but she thought she detected a warmth in his gaze that gave her a little hope.

"Miles called on behalf of UCLA's new dreamsharing program to ask me to come and guest-lecture about the finer points of architecture. I stayed with Cobb for a couple days and he mentioned that you were nearby." She couldn't stop herself from looking away from him as she said all this. It was so much easier to gaze into the fire than to face his probing eyes for any longer. She knew she sounded like a mental case, coming to visit in the dead of night with absolutely no warning, after more than a year of no contact whatsoever. Even worse, to have his girlfriend answer the door…

"So what, normal visiting hours aren't exciting enough for you?" She could hear the smile in his voice. She had missed his humor so much in the time since the inception. She could vividly remember every time that she had managed to make him smile. It felt like something from another life. She met his eyes again.

"Arthur, do you still dream?" The smile was gone in the blink of an eye. He suddenly looked much older, and his penetrating gaze made her feel much younger. His hand was frozen halfway to sweeping his hair out of his eyes, and as she watched him he put his hand down slowly, as though every movement might cause pain.

"Ariadne, what is this about?" he was obviously concerned, and Ariadne found she couldn't meet his eyes again. She stared down at her hands and discovered that she was methodically pulling threads out of the warm blanket. She forced herself to let go of the soft fibers and started picking at her cuticles instead.

"At first…after the inception, I didn't dream for a few months," Ariadne whispered into her lap. Her voice felt like it was stuck in her throat, and it seemed like every word had to be forced up through her rapidly closing esophagus. "It was…not quite restful, but bearable. When I did begin to dream again, they were nightmares. Except, they were real. Every night I would watch myself kill Mal, or throw Fischer off that highrise, or be attacked by militarized projections, over and over without being able to change what I knew was coming. All the terror I felt while it while it was happening…all of it was there."

Arthur wasn't looking at her anymore. His head was bowed as though he was praying, and he looked as though he was in pain. His hands were clenched into fists on his knees. She pressed on, knowing that if she didn't finish telling him then, she would never be able to.

"Eventually, it got so that I would wake up and not realize I was awake. I couldn't tell what was real and what was part of the dream. My roommate got scared one night and called the police. They…they took me to the hospital, and had me talk to a shrink."

Arthur looked up sharply then. She couldn't read his expression, but his knuckles were white against the fabric of the blanket over his knees.

"I didn't tell them the truth, so they assumed I'd had some kind of traumatic experience. The shrink told me to think of all the good things that happened to me during that time. She sent me home with a notebook in which I was supposed to write down all the positives in that part of my life."

Her cuticle was bleeding now, but she couldn't feel it. Where her throat had felt like a sand trap a few minutes earlier, now the words were pouring out of her, so that she couldn't stop even if she wanted to. Later, she would be grateful that Arthur hadn't interrupted her. She wasn't sure if she would have been able to finish her story if he had broken into her train of thought.

"At first, I couldn't think of anything. I was afraid to go to sleep, so I would sit in bed with the notebook open on my lap and let it wash over me. Finally, I remembered the first time I ever shared a dream with Cobb. Do you remember?"

"Mal stabbed you," he whispered hoarsely. "I remember."

"Yes. I woke up, terrified, gasping, panicking, and the first thing I saw was your face in front of mine, and you were telling me it was okay, that I would be okay, that it was just a dream. You brought me back to reality."

Arthur had slid to his knees in front of her now, so that his face was level with her knees. He still didn't look at her, and she was glad she didn't have to meet his eyes. She could feel her cheeks getting warm as she cut to the real heart of the matter.

"That was the first memory I wrote down in the notebook that shrink gave me. After that, it was easy. That notebook is filled with jokes you told me, times you made me smile, and times you calmed me down after I was killed by projections. Weirdly enough, it did help me get to sleep. Instead of dreaming about the nightmarish parts, I would dream about you bringing me back to this world."

Sometime during this little speech, Arthur's head had whipped up to stare openly at her. From this angle, the firelight illuminated a tiny scar on his cheekbone, and Ariadne focused on that instead of meeting his eyes.

"Ever since I came back to the states, I've been having the same dream every night. Over and over, and every morning I wake up wondering if it was as real for you as it was for me. I tear my mind apart trying to decide if it was all just part of the dream or not. Every morning, I tell myself that it's impossible to fake a feeling like that, even in dreams."

Arthur was looking down again, this time at his hands clutching the blanket draped across her knees. Another of her cuticles started bleeding. She tried to still her hands, but unconsciously began shredding the blanket again.

"But then, I tell myself that it's impossible to ignore the facts. One kiss, and it wasn't even part of reality. And then more than a year of nothing at all. Cobb checked up on me, several times in the first few months. Eames called from time to time. Even Saito called to make sure of my bank account number so I could get my cut. But the one person who I thought might have had more than a professional interest in me, who I thought felt a little of what I felt, was silent."

She paused, wondering if he would have a rationale for her. When he didn't say anything at all, she brought her hand up to tip his chin so she could meet his eyes. She didn't feel afraid anymore; She didn't feel anything at all. "When I dreamt about that kiss tonight, I knew I had to find out, once and for all. I knew I'd go crazy if I didn't at least try to see you. And now I know. Everything I feel, everything I thought you might have felt, that was just a dream. I'm so sorry to have disturbed you. I think it's time for me to go."

Her throat was closing up again and she knew that she was about to cry. She had to get away so he wouldn't see. She made to get up but his hand shot out to catch her wrist and pull her back down into the chair. She sat gracelessly, waiting for some kind of explanation.

"I'm a coward," he whispered after what felt like an eternity. His grip was still tight on her wrist, and his free hand was tracing the lines on her palm, ghosting over the smooth surface of her hand like a breath of wind. His blanket was pooled around his waist and the firelight softly illuminated the trim planes of his chest. He was lean and smooth and lightly muscled, and Ariadne could not imagine anyone so beautiful. Even more important, she couldn't believe what he had said.

"That's not true," she argued gently. "I could never believe that." She felt curiously light, and she rather thought the ball was in his court now. Remembering how difficult it had been to tell her story, she inched her free hand toward his and linked their fingers together lightly, encouraging him.

"But it's still true," he met her gaze steadily then. His color was high and he held her hand more firmly as he continued. "I knew the inception would stay with you. I knew it might tear you apart. I knew from that first time, when you woke up gasping for air, what it might do to you, and I was afraid."

Ariadne slid down so they were eye to eye again. She held both of his hands now. "You were afraid of me?"

"I was afraid of seeing you broken. I knew watching you go through that would break my heart," he squeezed her hands tightly and brought them to his chest, never letting go. All the while, his eyes drilled into hers with an intensity that she had come to expect in him. "Even hearing about it now—the thought of you in so much pain—God, Ariadne, that's unbearable to me. I thought if I didn't know, it would be like it wasn't really happening."

"So you stayed away," Ariadne whispered. She thought of all the lonely nights she'd spent away from him, and she found she couldn't fault him. She knew she would have done the same.

"I was selfish," He spat, and she could see his self-loathing. He looked away from her, ashamed. "I ran away so I wouldn't have to feel anything. I was too wrapped up in my own fear to try and save you from yours."

Ariadne placed her hand on his cheek. Her pinky brushed his pulse point and she could feel his heart speed up a little. She would later think it was ironic how she went to visit him for selfish reasons, and ended up comforting him instead. "But you did save me, Arthur. Dreaming of you kept me alive."

He met her eyes again, searching, searching for something within them. He covered her hand, the one still framing his cheek, and slid his hand down to her elbow, pulling her closer and closer. Her eyes fluttered shut as his mouth descended on hers, tentative but yearning. It was a mere ghost of a kiss, and she pulled back after just a moment. She was dizzy with the intensity of his gaze, but her rational side won out despite the endorphins singing through her veins.

"What about…" she let her eyes drift over to the hallway that his beautiful housemate had disappeared into. "…her?"

Arthur smiled at her, his genuine, one-in-a-million, face-splitting grin. "I'm sure once we explain the situation, my _sister_ will think it's about damn time. She is thoroughly sick of having me moping around her house."

He gave her an Eskimo kiss and she giggled, feeling a little giddy with relief. "She's your sister?"

"The one and only. Now do I have to talk you through all of my family dynamics right this moment, or can I kiss you again?" he demanded, not waiting for an answer but giving her a real kiss this time. Ariadne thought that if she hadn't been sitting already, her knees would have given way right then.

They kissed for what felt like an eternity and a split second all at once, before Ariadne broke away to let out a jaw-splitting yawn. It was contagious, and Arthur yawned widely, straining to check the clock on the mantle. "Jesus, it's almost time to be awake again. No wonder we're so tired."

He pulled her up and led her by the hand into his bedroom at the end of the hall. She was too tired to really take it in, but it occurred to her that she would have all the time she needed later. She smiled to herself. She had never managed to dream about happiness quite like this.

They lay down facing each other, still holding hands. They were almost asleep when Ariadne remembered. "Arthur?" she murmured, ghosting her fingertips over his cheek. "You never answered my question."

"What question?" he mumbled, eyes closed.

"Do you still dream?"

He opened his eyes again. "Only sometimes, and not usually pleasantly." He admitted, a slight frown darkening his features. Then he smiled softly at her, an expression of tenderness that she had never seen on him before, and whispered, "But I think we'll both have sweet dreams tonight."

It was a promise that meant more than the world. Ariadne felt sleep, true, restful sleep overcome her at last as she fell asleep in his arms.

To sleep, perchance to dream.


End file.
